About Me

An enthusiastic teacher turned librarian turned support engineer, I have a diverse background and broad interests. While primarily working with web technology, I have interests in general computing and technology, instruction, accessibility, information management, technical services and metadata, and documentation among others.

I am always on the look out to improve existing services and implement new ones. While not a programmer or developer, I like to learn and I am not afraid to work with and dig into code. My methodology is very much user oriented in all my projects and work (at least as much as possible), and my aim is to improve the user experience and quality of life (at work) for team members.

Outside of GitLab, I mentor students as part of the UBC Arts Co-op Students’ Association mentorship program, which is a one-on-one mentorship program, mostly helping students with their applications, interviews, and professional development. I also mentor through the Aspire mentorship program by Support Driven.

I am also a proud mentor as part of Canada Learning Code (formerly, Ladies Learning Code), a non-profit that holds technology workshops. Mostly, I volunteer for HTML/CSS, web design, WordPress, and Teachers Learning Code, but have also mentored in Photoshop and Hack-a-thon workshops.

Last but not least, I help with organizing conferences and workshops whenever and wherever I can (see the list below).

You can follow me on twitter or find me elsewhere through about.me.

Current Employment

Staff Support Engineer (previously: (Senior) Support Agent, (Senior) Support Engineer) at GitLab (2018 – Present)

  • Engage and solve customer problems through email and video.
  • Understand and debug at an expert level.
  • Collaborate with engineers and the GitLab Community to escalate and fix bugs, and build new features.
  • Liaise and work alongside and across other teams to define and shape goals, priorities, and strategy (including feature prioritization, scoping, and MVCs); collaboratively improve the software, processes, and user relations; and deliver on projects relating to customer experience and success.
  • Write in-depth documentation and clarify communications that share knowledge and radiate GitLab’s technical strengths.
  • Mentor, with focus on levelling others up (to Senior/Staff), and train other members, especially in areas of expertise and new features with office hours, pairings, deep dives, and more.
  • Build and iterate efficient processes, especially in collaboration with the Support Operations team.
  • Identify and work on significant projects that result in substantial cost savings or revenue increases.
  • Define and work on quarterly OKRs that help improve the team and increase positive interactions.
  • Contribute to internal tooling/projects.
  • Assist in hiring by reviewing assessments, and performing interviews (both in and outside of Support); and onboarding of team members.
  • Participate in the GitLab.com Incident Management rotation to provide 24/7 emergency customer response in coordination with the Production team.
  • Participate in company-wide initiatives, including mentorship program (as mentor), Women’s Team Member Resource Group (TMRG), TeamOps (as trainer), and various one-off events.
  • Participate in Support, and Technical Writing/Documentation communities, including attending and presenting at related conferences.

Acting Chief of Staff to CTO (2022 Nov – 2023 Jan)

  • Initiated and guided the CTO team OKR process according to the OKR schedule (in partnership with the Chief of Staff to the CEO team).
  • Managed, tracked, and moderated OKRs for Engineering to ensure CTO Staff remains on track, and know their attention points throughout the quarter.
  • Created a CTO transition framework to help the future CTO start up quickly.
  • Reviewed all Engineering Working Groups’ handbook pages and work with facilitators to update them.
  • Managed the Engineering week in review, including tracking engagement, and sending out survey to gauge impact of item tagging trial and possibility of changing medium.
  • Participated in weekly Engineering leadership meetings, including (but not limited to) setting the agenda, asking questions, providing insights and analysis to inform strategic conversations. Documented and communicated decisions and action items from meetings. Ensured follow-up and closure of action items to increase accountability.
  • Participated in all Engineering Division Key Review meetings by asking clarifying and strategic questions.
  • Promoted the role and provided support for the process of selecting the next Acting Chief of Staff to CTO.
  • Maintained and fostered a close partnership, collaborating effectively with others outside of Engineering, such as Chief of Staff (team) to CEO, People Business Partners, and Product leadership on strategic initiatives.
  • Generally, supported CTO Directs, Engineering Working Groups, Top Initiatives, and others as requested by being a resource, providing feedback, completing requests, and making changes.

I also freelance and consult in various areas as time permits, including

  • accessibility,
  • web services,
  • user experience,
  • metadata and technical services,
  • automation and workflow,
  • documentation and technical writing, and
  • project management.

Previous Employment

My previous professional experience includes website redesign/development, web accessibility, user studies/user experience, accessible digital and physical materials, supervision, collaborative software (namely wiki) implementation and administration, information management, reporting, research, planning, collection management, reference, and instruction. For details, please see my LinkedIn profile.

Other previous experience include teaching, research support, tutoring, office/clerical support, and customer service.

Current and Recent Volunteering

  • Mentor, Aspire by Support Driven (2019 – Present)
  • Mentor, UBC ACSA (Arts Co-op Students’ Association) (2014 – Present)
  • Mentor, UBC Online Career Mentor (via Ten Thousand Coffees) (2018 – Present)
  • Mentor, Canada Learning Code (previously, Ladies Learning Code) various workshops including HTML & CSS, Web Design , WordPress, Hack sessions (2012 – Present)
  • Organizer, Access Conference (2020, 2021)
  • Mentor, BCLA Mentorship Program (2013 – 2021)
  • Past volunteer work involved organizing and volunteering at tech events, peer reviewing, and mentorship.

Recent Presentations & Articles

Education

I finished my Master’s in Library and Information Studies (MLIS) at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies (SLAIS) in December 2011 and officially graduated in May 2012.

Previously, I completed a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Psychology, then a Bachelor of Education, but began as a student in Software Engineering and Mathematics (at what is now SFU Surrey, but used to be TechBC).

Selection of Work

My previous presentations, articles, and blog posts cover accessibility, web technology, library services, managing projects and teams, and work/community culture. Since continually adding to the list will get too long, a selection of all blog posts and externally published work is below, broken down by topic, then in reverse chronological order:

Work/Community Culture & Similar

Project Management & Workflow

Accessibility

(Web) Design, Development, User Experience & Usability

Technical Services, Library Collections, & Metadata